Kyle worked at a frantic pace on his father’s leg. At times it was painful, yet through it all Landon kept smiling. He had not been this happy in years. Any fears or concern about the Atoll and its inhabitants were now gone. God was in control and He worked for good for those who loved Him. Jane propped his head in her lap and alternated between giving Landon a protein drink and sips of water.
“How you holding up, Pop?”
“Fine.”
“I’m gonna get you stable, but when we get to the Atoll, I’ll patch you up good. Then we need to get you another ship.”
“Why’s that?
“I got another mission trip for you.”
“What?”
“I promised those villagers we’d bring them home to the Atoll.”
“Anything for you.”
“I’m sorry about your ship,” Jane said.
Landon patted his breast pocket that held the disk. “She can be rebuilt. Every annoying nut and bolt of that ship can be rebuilt. I’ve never been so eager to go home.” No one responded. “What?”
“There’s been a soft coup,” Kyle said. “The Senate is a mess and Karen may be impeached.”
“Who told you this?”
Kyle thumbed toward the front. “Guy flying this bird. He says it’s pandemonium back at the Atoll. A faction of soldiers loyal to Senators Hitchens and Shaw tried to take Karen into custody but failed. There have been shootouts, with multiple people hurt and two dead. D’Souza and several others in the Senate have been trying to call for order. Senator D’Souza tried to hold a rally to call for peace, but he was shot.”
“Is he...?”
“He’s in critical condition,” Kyle finished. “That’s all I know, Pop. Now stay still.”
Landon had been imprisoned for taking a firearm on the mission that led to Kyle’s capture. Although he saved Kyle and another soldier, he had broken protocol. While he waited for the Senate to make a decision, he knew Kyle was still trapped in New America and had escaped. At the last minute he was unable to break through the shielding and Karen let him go. Karen, the newly elected Chancellor, had stuck her neck out for Landon and was now paying a heavy price. Whatever he was going home to, it was not going to be fun, but it was not on his shoulders anymore. He knew that now.
The Halo slowed to a hover, lowered onto the water’s surface and, a short while later, submerged. Landon could hear and feel the water surge into the ballast tanks around them. The electric motor turned on with a hum and the ship was now a sub. An hour later the Halo reached the Atoll. It took a while to pass through the shield and find an open dock.
Unlike Nova, who spent little time in dry dock, the Halos were all given dry-dock permits in the space beneath the Atoll's city streets. The Halo’s back door lowered down, casting a bright light into the dark cargo space. Techs rushed onboard with a hover stretcher for both Landon and Rafael. Kyle walked out with his dad to a crowd of soldiers. There was no media or citizens allowed in this area of the Atoll without permission. Maria gasped when she saw the high-tech substructure.
“Wait until you see topside,” Jane said.
A group of armed soldiers approached the group.
Kyle pushed his way through the crowd. “I have patients here. Don’t hold me up.”
The soldiers parted for the famous doctor. Two of them escorted the group up a turbo lift to the park level. The door opened and a waft of dry, warm air accompanied by the smell of real grass and flowerbeds greeted them.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Maria said. “This can’t be real.”
“We’re gonna help Rafael,” Kyle said.
A couple of soldiers commandeered a monorail, taking Kyle directly to the hospital.
A nurse and doctor rushed over to Kyle to greet him and look at the bloody rag on his arm.
“I’m fine. I need to get my father into surgery ASAP.”
“But your arm?” one doctor said.
“I’m fine.”
Landon grasped Kyle’s good arm. “I’ll be fine, son. They’ll take good care of me. You need your arm tended to.” Kyle paused. “Let me go, son. Now you’re the one holding on too tight.”
Kyle broke down, an emotional dam giving way. “But this is all my fault. You could have died. Others did.”
“No, it’s not your fault.” Landon’s tears now matched his son’s. “You were right to go back there. The world needs us. You’re not responsible for the evil of others. Let me go with the doctors.”
Kyle released the floating stretcher, and two orderlies followed the doctor into a surgical suite. Landon was given a saline drip, oxygen, and a shot and was able to find rest.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Atoll 2077
Landon awoke in a dim, white room. Everything was foggy, the way anesthesia leaves your system. He was in a single recovery room with a window looking out onto the Atoll’s streets. Soft classical music played from speakers buried in the walls and ceiling. Calming ambient noises with the sound of water and nighttime nature mixed in. It was a way for the hospital to help keep patients calm.
He lifted the thick bedsheet to find the bandaged stump of his right leg sticking out of a hospital gown. It reminded him of the first time he had the operation, when his leg was first taken. This time they had just repaired and reinstalled a new link for another cybernetic leg.
In a dim corner of the room, a blurry figure in white sat in a chair. He wondered if it was an angel, or Lara. The figure rose, approached the bed, and grasped his hand. Warmth ran up his arm.
“I’m sorry,” the woman wept. It was Karen. He could tell by her voice even before she came into focus.
He raised her hand to his chapped lips and kissed it. It was the most affection he had ever shown her. The effort took more energy than running five miles.
“You were right about everything,” she said. “About not going to New America.”
“No, it was the right call to try to go back,” he whispered in a hoarse voice. “You and my son were right.” He kissed her hand again. “I’m sorry for the hurtful things I said to you before. Please forgive me.”
“Of course.”
Whether it was the trials he had been through, the anesthesia, or pain medication, he felt the desire to tell her more. To tell her everything. “I’m sorry I left you after your accident years ago. I—”
She put a finger to his lips to shush him. He rolled his head to the side to move her hand away. “I have to tell you why.”
“You were still grieving the loss of your wife, and my accident with the boys must have triggered a lot of memories—”
“No,” he interrupted. “I was falling for you and I felt guilty because you were Lara’s cousin and Marcus had been my best friend.”
She giggled and cried at the same time. She used her free hand to dab her eyes with the corner of the bedsheet. “Oh, you are one stubborn man. Why didn’t you talk to me?”
Landon looked away, as he didn’t want her to see him cry. On the nearby table rested a new cybernetic leg. Its shiny silver parts were interwoven with black silicon components. He would need time to recover before the new implant grafted into his leg. Only then would he be able to wear the new prosthetic. Then he would find a decommissioned Halo and rebuild Nova.
“Where are you right now?” Karen asked.
“Huh? Oh, I was thinking of how I’d get a new ship.”
“Seriously?” She laughed. “You drop an emotional bomb on me and float away. Oh, you are such a man.”
He looked back to notice that her brunette hair was in a tight bun and her white pantsuit made her look like she was twenty years younger than her fifty years. He was not going to let her go. There was no more guilt. He would always love Lara, but he now knew that loving Karen was not wrong.
He looked toward the white ceiling. If he focused hard enough, he could feel the slight movement of the Atoll as it crawled along the ocean’s floor. It was always moving forward, like life.
“I think,” he paused, “I’m going to marry you.”
She laughed out loud again. Wiped her eyes, then laughed louder, her tears increasing. “You’re crazy.”
“You didn’t answer.”
“You didn’t really ask, and you’re heavily medicated.” She kissed him on the forehead, then the cheek.
The warmth ran down his spine and disappeared into his numb leg. He could get used to her kissing him. Women on the Atoll didn’t wear perfume, but she still smelled like flowers.
“There’s been a lot of problems since you left,” Karen said.
“I don’t care. God’s in control.”
“There’s a chance I could be impeached.”
“God’s in control.”
She kissed his cheek again. The fog lifted and in its place was clarity.
“Karen, I’m sorry I waited so long to tell you—”
“Tell me what?”
“That I love you.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Drake Passage, Pacific Ocean 2043
Rick, along with several technicians, typed away at controls. On the vid screen, the cameras around the perimeter of the Atoll showed the superstructure start to sink beneath the ocean waves. A moment later the screens darkened but showed no water around the structures. The shields were holding the water back.
Josiah gripped the microphone from the table as he had done so many times in the past. “Attention, fellow citizens. The Atoll is now running below the sea. All systems read that the shields are holding. For the interim, please stay in your assigned watertight buildings. I promise to keep you abreast.”
Clarke and Rick both came up and hugged Josiah. Many staff and families took the crystal tubes back to their housing, leaving only essential personnel in the dim control room.
An hour later, Rick left the computer terminal he manned and approached Josiah. “Boss, why don’t you head back to your quarters? I’ll call you if I need you.”
Josiah waved him off as he grabbed a data pad and crawled into his sleeping bag on the floor next to the command controls. “I’m gonna monitor the computers for a bit and would feel better sleeping here.”
Rick walked over to a supply closet, took out another bag, and brought it over near Josiah’s. “Then I’m staying too.”
“Go be with your wife.”
He ignored Josiah and crawled into the sleeping bag. “Jen’s up a lot at night and I can’t sleep.”
Josiah faced Rick like two boys at summer camp whispering in a tent. “Everything okay?”
“Everything’s great. She’s pregnant.”
Josiah teared up. He had cried more since he had turned to God than in his entire life. His heart had been broken and rebuilt, more tender, yet stronger. He reached a hand out of his sleeping bag and clasped Rick’s.
The moment they touched hands, regret set in. Josiah thought about all the years he had wasted and lives he had ruined by relegating women to mere objects. Although he was redeemed, he could never turn back the clock. Maybe someday he would find love, but the thought didn’t take. Somehow he knew that he would be single, like the apostle Paul.
Three hours later, red lights flashed and an alert sounded in the control room. Rick was out of his sleeping bag before Josiah. Both ran to different terminals.
“Shielding’s good,” Josiah reported.
“Radar’s picked up a couple bogies though.”
“Destroyers?”
“No, subs.” Rick paused. “One of them just launched a torpedo. Do we have countermeasures online yet?”
“Negative.”
“Any tricks up your sleeve?”
Josiah typed at a weapons terminal that had not been assigned to a person yet. “As the Atoll moves along the ocean floor, I can drop charges into the sandy bottom.”
“What will that do?”
“Not sure yet. How long until the torpedo impacts?”
“Ten seconds.”
Josiah focused on the large vid screen that showed a glowing projectile rushing toward them. The Atoll shook when it impacted.
Rick announced, “That took a toll on the shielding, boss. Dropped us twenty points. Any idea why so much, so fast?”
Josiah kept his eyes focused on the screen as he watched the two subs. “While we’re underwater,” he said, “the shields are drained easier due to having to hold back the pressure.”
“That ain’t good.”
“Hold on a second,” Josiah said.
A moment later the first sub passed over the area Josiah had dropped the depth charges. He triggered the bombs. The sub shook and almost rolled over from the blast. Ten seconds later it blew its ballasts and rose toward the surface. The second sub continued pursuing the Atoll. It launched another torpedo.
“Good job boss, but that trick ain’t gonna work a second time.”
“I know,” he said. “What’s the depth capacity of that second sub?”
Rick scrolled through a terminal. “That’s a Seawolf class and we are talking 2400 feet. Don’t tell me you’re gonna do what I think you’re gonna do?”
“We have no choice. We’re diving.” He went over to a panel to move hard levers. When he returned, he pulled up the wired microphone again. “This is Josiah Saunders. We have been attacked by two subs. We have managed to repel one sub and are moving off into deeper water to ward off the second. There is no cause for alarm, and I promise to keep you abreast if anything changes.” He clicked off the microphone. “Is it me or do I sound like a salesman when I talk on that—”
A thunderous noise shook the Atoll. Rick stared at his monitor. “Boss, we’re down to sixty-five percent. You sure you want to dive?”
“We have no choice. The seabed drops off at forty-five degrees to our port. We need to go now.”
The Atoll dove and the sub followed at a safe distance, not firing. At two thousand feet, the sub stopped trailing them, but the Atoll continued on to three thousand feet. The shielding dropped to fifty percent. Engineers and scientists flooded into the control room from all over the Atoll, helping to maintain the shield’s integrity.
Early the next morning, a debate erupted between the technicians in the control room.
“We must surface,” one of the elderly scientists said.
An Indian programmer name D’Souza retorted, “We’ll be fine staying here. If the shields drop further we’ll still have time to surface.”
“But what if we meet the sub on the way back up with lower power?”
Others nodded agreement, and a few yelled at Josiah. He and Rick tried to maintain order, but fear swept through the room like a contagious virus. Josiah, exhausted from lack of sleep, broke down in the restroom outside the control room. He splashed water in his face and stared at the old man in the mirror. Lines now creased his forehead where there was once smooth skin. His hair was thinning and graying, and his new beard was gray. He no longer cared about vanity, but for health reasons he knew sleep couldn’t be ignored forever. He wondered if this was how Moses felt leading the Israelites into the wilderness, with everyone relying on him.
“I can’t do this alone, Lord.”
There was a toilet flush from a stall behind him. A moment later, Agape stepped out. He was dressed in new clothes that were two sizes too big for him. The child had a constant smile on his face since he landed on the Atoll.
“What are you so smiley about?”
“We’re gonna be fine, Mr. Saunders,” he said, starting to wash his hands next to Josiah.
“How do you know that?” Josiah hoped the young boy had some nugget of wisdom like he had so long ago in the helicopter exodus out of New York City.
“You’ve led us this far, haven’t you?”
Josiah waited, but Agape offered no other insight. Again, it was a reaffirmation that everyone was relying on him. “I’m not God, son. I don’t have much gas left in the tank, so to speak.”
The boy finished washing his hands and put them under an electric hand dryer. He shouted ove
r the noise. “You think this is about you still, don’t you?” He removed his hands and the noise stopped. He continued in a normal tone. “This has nothing to do with you. God chose you for this time. For this moment. He will show you a way, but you need to let him.”
“How?”
Agape shrugged his shoulders. “Do everything you can, and leave the results up to God. My dad says you need sleep. Even Moses had help in the wilderness.”
The boy patted Josiah’s hand, the human touch no longer something he despised but welcomed. It was as if the boy read his mind. Josiah left the restroom and found Rick.
“Shields are creeping back up, but we’re still only at fifty-two percent,” Rick said.
Josiah patted his shoulder. “Call me if you need me. I’m going to my quarters for a shower and rest.”
Rick didn’t say anything. He had always pushed Josiah to slow down and get rest, but it was clear by his expression that he never expected it during a crisis. Josiah spoke to a couple of other engineers before he left the room, telling them it would be fine.
Four hours later, Josiah found Rick, Clarke, and the control room still packed full of staff. He could tell there was less tension in the room. People smiled and looked more relaxed. Something good had happened.
Clarke made eye contact and rushed over. “Shields are back up to seventy-five percent and rising.”
Josiah said a silent prayer of thanks and took out a pouch of beef jerky from a haversack. He was famished. For the next hour he walked around the room, checking on staff but not offering to fix issues he saw. When asked, he would give feedback, otherwise he stayed silent. Although he had never become a father, he had, in fact, become a parent to well over a hundred thousand people. They needed to learn to handle problems as they arose. He would not be with them forever and, like children, they had to learn to survive without their parents.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Pacific Ocean 2052
Seventy-year-old Josiah Saunders sat alone in a small conference room off of the main control room. His white beard now matched what little white hair was left on his head. In front of him lay three data pads with separate formulas on each. The decade-plus-long riddle that had come to be known as the cloaking enigma continued to elude him.
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